a little bit of {this and that}

"Home is not where you live, but where they understand you." - Christian Morganstern

I am a simple girl. I live in a small house and I like it. I am thankful for what I have, a fantastic family, good friends and my stuff. Ya, I like my stuff. My fiesta ware is the tops. I like my little knickknacks, my books, you know my "stuff."

Another thing. Almost all of our furniture has been aquired as hand-me-downs. And that is okay. I like our furniture for now. One day my dream is new stuff in the living room. Well, maybe not "new" but not what we have, however, for now, it is fine.

All I ask of my used furniture is to work. Such as when I want a shirt out of the bottom drawer of my (hand-me-down) dresser all I ask is for said drawer to open. And if it doesn't open after a few minutes of fighting I might a) bang around loudly early in the morning to let Troy know I am pissed at my dresser, b) swear, c) cry, d) all of the above. Depends on the day.

After a few (consecutive) mornings of being woke up by my banging/swearing/crying/all of the above (after all I have had this problem for YEARS) Troy said, "Why don't we get you a new dresser?" After some discussion and me saying no a hundred times because of the lack of resources (read: money) we decided to start looking. Troy browsed online to show me he could find something in a reasonable price range. Then he mentioned the new/used/discount furniture store across town behind Safeway. I said there was no store there. I should know. I go to Safeway - a LOT. Um...FYI there is a store there. Who knew? Troy maybe, but I think only he knew, it was hidden from the rest of us.

So, we go. We shop. We find great dressers out of our price range (and some couches and chairs too...must start saving money - I hate saving money!). Then, in the back, under a pile of rolled carpets we find the perfect dresser. We paid our hard earned dollars then left, without dresser as we drive a car that won't fit a dresser.... And if you think, 'great they went and got a big truck and picked up the dresser' you would be correct. If you think it was easy...hahaha!!! When we got there Troy realized he didn't have the key to the lock on the back. He asked the guy at the store for a hacksaw - they had one, did NOT work.

Listen, this is an OLD, diesel, pain in the ass to drive much less back and forth across town, truck to drive. So I think, 'I will call Cheryl.' She will come get us to get the key which is at the museum. And she did. Thank you Cheryl. She takes us to the museum. Troy goes in to get the key(s) - he has a LOT of keys - not sure which one of hundreds it could be...Troy had left his car in front of the museum so our thought is that we would take our car and Cheryl could go on her merry way. WRONG! Neither of us brought keys to our car. We are on a roll. As Cheryl is pulling away I am waving her down to stop (she hadn't actually GONE anywhere just pulled out of the parking spot) and she, LAUGHING, drove us back to the furniture store. Once again, thank you Cheryl. From there Troy tried all the keys, none worked, so ended up cutting the lock off with bolt cutters (which he grabbed in case NONE of the hundreds of keys worked). By the way we had great conversations in Cheryl's pimp-mobile (mini-van) that cannot be shared with you here...

In conclusion (as this feels like an essay) the dresser is home. It is in the bedroom. The drawers ALL open and shut ALL the time.

Lessons learned: make sure husband has keys to locks before actually leaving the house, better yet get him combination locks; keep friends on speed dial; always take car keys even if you aren't driving a car (go figure); there is a furniture store behind Safeway; and said furniture store ROCKS!